An Accidental Tragedy

by Roderick Graham

  Lowther, meanwhile, still with no definition of Mary’s status, transported the royal party to the castle at Carlisle on 18 May. The castle, founded by William II in 1092, had sufficient accommodation to allow for a modicum of royal state, but was not immediately defensible against cannon and was therefore unsuitable in the long term, if Elizabeth decided that Mary was indeed a prisoner and should be put beyond rescue. Lowther was afraid that Mary, who was lodged in the warden’s apartments, might escape ‘with devices of towels . . . at her chamber window or elsewhere in the night, a body of her agility and spirit may escape soon being so near the border’.

  He wrote to Cecil, ‘Her grace’s attire is very mean’, yet he was keen to report that he had paid all Mary’s bills at Cockermouth and provided horses for her transport. Lowther was the first in a long line of Mary’s unwilling hosts to send the bill for her expenses to Elizabeth. They were not always paid and seldom in full. Mary Stewart may have cost Scotland very little, but she was an expensive immigrant to England.

  Lowther still had doubts as to Mary’s position: ‘If the Queen’s Majesty will have her to court . . . how and in what manner?’ Mary wept at the news that Moray was to execute some of her supporters and called for revenge from Elizabeth or, with the hint of a rather unwise threat, from her friends in France.

  A mere two days after Mary’s arrival at Carlisle her position became clearer, as can be seen in a letter from the English Privy Council: ‘The Council commands the Sheriff, Justices of peace and gentlemen of Cumberland, to use the Scottish Queen and her company at Workington honourably, as the Earl of Northumberland shall appoint, and let none of them escape.’ The word ‘escape’ indicated Mary was more of a prisoner than a guest.

  By the end of the month, the situation had become even clearer. The Earl of Northumberland attempted to gain custody of Mary but was refused access by Lowther, while Elizabeth put Mary into the official care of Lord Scrope of Bolton. Scrope was warden of the West Marches and captain of Carlisle Castle. Elizabeth also despatched her vice-chancellor, Sir Francis Knollys, to become Mary’s guardian. He was a 55-year-old courtier of great experience and a close friend of Elizabeth, with a vast family that connected him to most of the noble houses of England. His daughter, Lettice, had been widowed by the death of the Earl of Essex and had now remarried Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Although a Puritan, Knollys became a friend of Mary’s, but many others with Elizabeth’s ear were sworn enemies. In London the Earl and Countess of Lennox met with Elizabeth and, more or less hysterically, demanded that Mary be tried for murder.

  Meanwhile, Mary was now creating her own diplomatic network: she had sent Herries to London with letters for Elizabeth and Cecil, while Lord Fleming had been given instructions to visit France, carrying a letter assuring Catherine de Medici of Mary’s undying love. Catherine, for her part, wrote to Elizabeth thanking her for looking after Mary’s interests and sent a M. de Monmorin as an ambassador. Implicit in this was Catherine’s heartfelt gratitude that Mary was Elizabeth’s problem and not hers. Mary’s instructions to Fleming were more inflammatory, however. Since Elizabeth would not use military force in Scotland to restore Mary to her throne and had moreover lent her support to Moray, Mary now asked France for 2,000 foot soldiers, money for 500 light cavalry with artillery and other munitions to be sent to Dumbarton. Her jewellery still in France could be used as a payment for this. Mary warned the French king against Scottish agitators travelling to France and advised him to admit no one without a passport from Mary herself. Fleming also carried a letter with similar demands to the Cardinal of Lorraine. In reality, Fleming never got further than London, where he was stopped by Cecil and Charles IX was saved the embarrassment of having to refuse. Mary sent Herries to London to quieten any doubts Elizabeth might have and began her letter with earnest pleading to meet Elizabeth in person. However, she added, ‘If for any reason I cannot come to you, seeing I have freely come to throw myself into your arms, you will I am sure permit me to ask assistance of other allies – for, thank God, I am not destitute of some.’ This was an ill-judged threat from a position of weakness which Elizabeth quietly ignored. Mary complained further: ‘I have been kept as if a prisoner in your castle for 15 days, and on your councillors coming, not allowed to go to you only to declare the truth of my grievances.’ Then, finally, she remembered her manners: ‘I must not forget to thank you for my good reception . . . especially by the deputy warden Mr Lowther who did all courtesy without express command.’

  On the same day, Scrope and Knollys met Herries, who was about to depart for London, and the three men got down to some realpolitik. There was no doubt that one of Elizabeth’s greatest fears was the possibility, however remote, of a liberating French army in Scotland. This would have obliged Elizabeth to react with forces of her own; she had already come to the aid of the Reformation eight years previously. That action had been very expensive and Scotland had gained more than England. All parties agreed that there could be no possibility of Mary being allowed into Elizabeth’s presence until she was cleared of all blame for Darnley’s murder. Having agreed on this, Scrope and Knollys met Mary for the first time and expressed Elizabeth’s sorrow for her ‘lamentable misadventure and inconvenient arrival’. Atypically, these two men made no immediate comment on her beauty but ‘found her to have an eloquent tongue and a discreet head and it seemeth by her doings she hath stout courage and liberal heart adjoined thereto’. When told of Elizabeth’s conditions for a meeting, Mary burst into tears and immediately asked for safe passage through England since France and Spain would certainly help her. On the verge of hysterics she went on to accuse the Scottish Lords of taking by force the lands that she was about to reclaim at her birthday. Once again she threatened to seek French aid in Scotland and the interview was over. Scrope and Knollys thought that left alone she would not return to Scotland without French aid, but might try to pass through Scotland en route for France, although this could be stopped by putting good intelligence at the disposal of Moray. Also, they realised the dilemma that, while Mary could not be kept a close prisoner, her proximity to the Border made close guard essential. However, to have her carried further into the realm was seen as ‘the highway to a dangerous sedition’. Every option was dangerous and Mary was intractable. This was not what Elizabeth wanted to hear, and Cecil, as was his habit, wrote himself a long memorandum setting out the situation.

  There would be no visitors without permission, and all secret letters would be seized. Anyone suspected of Darnley’s murder or supporting Bothwell’s marriage would, in a chilling phrase, be ‘put in safety to answer’. France would be warned not to interfere. There should be incontrovertible proofs of Mary’s culpability in Darnley’s murder. If she were proved innocent then Elizabeth would restore her, but if she were found guilty, then Elizabeth would settle her in her realm secure from French tyranny. By no practice should she be conveyed out of the realm. ‘It seems meet for her majesty to hear and decide any controversy for the crown of Scotland – for that of ancient right it appertaineth to the crown of England, as by multitudes of records, examples and precedents may be proved.’ If Mary was to be acquitted, then the Treaty of Leith – Cecil made a rare error here as the treaty in question must have been the Treaty of Edinburgh, confirming Elizabeth’s right to rule – should be ratified. If Mary were found guilty then she might be restored under limitations. However, the memorandum continued,

  if the criminality be excessive to live in some convenient place without possessing her kingdom. If restored she and her son may reign jointly, the Regent retaining office till the son’s majority. If she should go to France, then England would be surrounded by very powerful enemies and France is superior in force to us. If she stays she will embolden all the evil subjects here. If she returns to Scotland the friends of England shall be abased and those of France increased.

  It is a long document in which every possibility is examined and every outcome projected. While Cecil did not state it explicitl
y, it is presumed that Mary would remain a close prisoner until some kind of trial took place, and while not prejudging the outcome, it was clear that Cecil’s preference would be for Mary to be under close arrest in England. Cecil also feared a coup d’état in Scotland by the Hamiltons, which would result in England’s frontiers being under constant threat – thus increasing the cost of defence. If Elizabeth read it – and it is very likely that she did – she would have been horrified at the thought of having to act against her cousin and at the possible expense. Cecil also issued orders that ‘no access of English, Scottish or French be allowed to come to her . . . good heed to be taken to the apprehension of any letters that shall be sent secretly thither’.

  Knollys directly confronted Mary about her implication in Darnley’s murder after dinner on Sunday, 30 May and ‘after her accustomed manner’ she burst into tears. Three days later he discussed the likely places of confinement with Cecil – places where ‘papistry is not so strong as it is in the north’ – and earnestly hoped that he would not be Mary’s ‘settled gaoler’. Cecil’s spies reported a suspicion that Mary was already in secret correspondence with France and the impasse continued, with Mary behaving as though she were a free woman and Knollys having to keep her under strict watch while both he and Cecil tried to prepare for her long-term imprisonment. Knollys complained to the Privy Council that he had a charge to see that the queen did not escape, ‘yet we have no charge to abridge her, nor detain her as a prisoner’. Elizabeth let events develop, confident that Cecil would ensure her safety, while she sat on the royal fence, writing a long letter to Mary on 8 June. This assured Mary yet again of Elizabeth’s undying love and care for her cousin, her care for her honour and her longing to see Mary cleared of ‘these things people condemn you in’. This was delivered by Middlemore, a fresh envoy, but ‘well known’ to Mary.

  Mary was now growing impatient at the lack of action from Elizabeth and was dropping hints to Knollys that she would use her dowry of £12,000 a year to hire mercenaries against Scotland and England and satisfy her ‘bloody appetite to shed the blood of her enemies’.

  Mary first met Middlemore on Sunday, 13 June at eight o’clock in the morning and she demanded to know how she could prove her innocence to Elizabeth when Elizabeth would not admit her. ‘No one can compel me to accuse myself, and yet if I would say anything of my self, I would say of my self to her and to none other. But I see how things frame evil for me. I have many enemies about the Queen, my good sister.’ Middlemore reported that this was done with great weeping and complaints of her evil usage. If Elizabeth would not help her would she ‘suffer me to pass to other princes?’ Mary also complained that Elizabeth favoured Moray against her and flatly refused to forbid the French to come to Dumbarton; ‘She would go herself to the Grand Turk for help.’ Middlemore, hoping that the news might calm the now-hysterical queen, told Mary that Elizabeth wanted her moved nearer to her, ‘where she might have more pleasure and liberty and be utterly out of danger of her enemies’. ‘She immediately asked if she was to go as a prisoner or at her own choice,’ reported Middlemore. ‘I said I was sure that her majesty meant no such thing as to imprison her . . . but thought she meant her a greater pleasure by bringing her nearer her.’ Middlemore guessed that Mary did not relish a move further south since it made an escape more difficult, and the long interview ended with Mary, in a torrent of self-pity, as a prisoner in her cousin’s hands, giving Middlemore a letter of complaint for Elizabeth. Mary never realised that threatening Elizabeth merely hardened her Tudor resolve and that complaining to a woman who had weathered the horrors of the Tower was interpreted as whining weakness and instantly dismissed. What might touch the heart of a flattering courtier had no effect whatsoever on Mary’s regal cousin.

  However on the next day all this was forgotten as Knollys reported,

  Yesterday she went out at a postern to walk on a playing green towards Scotland waited on by Scrope and himself [Knollys], with 24 of Read’s halberdiers and some of her own gentlemen; where 20 of her retinue played football before her for 2 hours, very strongly, nimbly and without foul play – the smallness of the ball occasioning their fairer play – and twice since coming she did the like in the same place and once rode out hare hunting, galloping so fast, and her retinue so well horsed, that they feared a rescue by her friends in Scotland and mean not to permit this in future.

  This was Mary doing what she enjoyed most: vigorous physical exercise among her friends. She probably had no thought of escape or rescue, but merely enjoyed the summer sunshine and the wind in her hair. Mary and her ladies took exercise by walking the length of the southern walls of the castle to the great gatehouse. In spite of almost complete rebuilding, this area is still known as ‘Lady’s Walk’.

  The negotiations concerning the conditions of Mary’s stay at Carlisle were at a stalemate with minor annoyances – for example Mary objected to Moray being called ‘Governor’ when Herries, her ambassador and friend, returned from London. In London the Privy Council received Middlemore’s account of his interview with alarm and immediately recommended that she be removed to Nottingham, Fotheringhay or Tutbury. Since she refused to be tried openly, the kings of France and Spain had to be informed of her intransigence.

  Meanwhile, Moray was carrying out a campaign of punishment and retribution in the south-west of Scotland, hanging ‘thieves’, destroying property and starving the opposition into subservience. Nau called it ‘an act of execrable and unprecedented cruelty’. Mary continued to write to Elizabeth urging that the two queens should settle the matter between themselves, and in a letter of 22 June Mary wrote of Moray’s boasts ‘at his table’. Moray was clearly boasting of the evidence he possessed which would implicate Mary in Darnley’s murder and Mary complained of ‘these letters so falsely invented’; the casket letters were always hovering in the background.

  Mary’s appeals to Elizabeth became even more pitiful a few days later: ‘Assuring myself that you would either send for me to come to you or else allow me to depart elsewhere as freely as I came hither . . . I implore you, Queen, sister, and cousin, to have a fellow feeling for your equal.’ Mary’s letters to Elizabeth have a sad spontaneity and she clearly wrote as her emotions drove her with no thought either of strategy or of cohesive argument. Her first task – an almost impossible one – should have been to convince Cecil of her case and persuade him to unlock the door to Elizabeth, but Mary simply behaved as if Elizabeth were a nursery friend and would respond to childish nagging.

  Knollys was now convinced that Mary had to be moved further south and made arrangements for her to go to Scrope’s Castle Bolton in Yorkshire. Mary refused to agree to such a move, but welcomed the return of her servant, Mary Seton, since this meant that now ‘every other day lightly she hath a new device of head dressing, without any cost and yet setteth forth a woman gaily well’.

  Mary’s gaiety ceased abruptly on 5 July, when Knollys formally announced to her that she would be moved to Bolton Castle. Mary flatly refused. He told her it was much pleasanter than this ‘noisome and unsavoury place’ but she continued to refuse, unless compelled, to move ‘one whit’ out of Carlisle without the queen’s direct commandment. Knollys countered that if Mary refused a move, putting her only two or three days’ ride nearer to Elizabeth, then he might ‘presume some mystery’. Mary, again in floods of tears, said he need not fear that she would ‘steal away’. She wrote again to Elizabeth, a long and rather tragic letter, agreeing to move to Bolton ‘as a thing forced’, but asking for the return of Lord Herries. Her plea for a personal interview was repeated: ‘If Caesar had not disdained to hear or read the complaint of an advertiser, he had not so died . . . I am not of the nature of the basilisk . . . And though I should be so dangerous and cursed as men say, you are sufficiently armed with constance shows an undertaking shows an undertaking [sic] and with justice.’ Mary realised she was losing the battle, and her gloom deepened when she received three trunks of clothing from Moray in which ther
e was only one complete gown among saddle covers and ‘such like trinkets’. Most of her clothing was still at Lochleven Castle.

  As Mary’s ambassador, Herries met with Middlemore in London in mid July and, according to Middlemore’s letter to Cecil, totally denounced Mary in an amazing volte-face. Middlemore claimed that Herries proposed that Elizabeth should rule Scotland, the French should be cast off, and Mary should never return home. In the light of Herries’s continued support for Mary this letter seems to be pure slander. Middlemore’s lack of subtlety had caused him to fail as an ambassador to Mary, although, as we shall see, he had had more success with Moray, and perhaps he wanted to creep further back into Cecil’s favour by this rather clumsy deceit.

  The first stage of Mary’s reluctant journey to Bolton – escorted by Sir George Bowes and forty armed horsemen, ostensibly to protect her from her enemies – was to Lowther’s house at Wharton, some twenty miles from Carlisle. Here, Knollys found Mary much more amenable. She was, after all, faced with a fait accompli and had no means of resisting, although Knollys still had no direct instruction from Elizabeth. Mary negotiated the right to send and receive messengers to and from her supporters in Scotland, also telling Knollys that she had given control of the government of Scotland to Châtelherault in her absence.

  The royal party finally arrived at Bolton after dark on 15 July. Mary was ‘very quiet, tractable and void of displeasant countenance’, with an entourage which had risen to fifty-one people, of whom twenty-one were ‘of the baser sort’. There were more people than Knollys had expected, and he was ‘driven to hire 4 little cars, 20 carriage horses, and 23 saddle horses for her women and men – all to her satisfaction’. Mary was lodged on the second floor of the north-west tower, in a spacious room with a fireplace and extensive views across the Yorkshire Dales. Her bedchamber adjoined this room and she could now enjoy more comfort than at Carlisle.